


The Last Trick

by Devilinthebox (princegrisejoie)



Series: Reincarnation Verse [3]
Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Bittersweet Ending, Descent into Madness, Light Angst, M/M, Magicians, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 20:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5262854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrisejoie/pseuds/Devilinthebox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Light was a magician. A master in the art of dreams, dreams and deception. He favoured the word dream himself, though it didn’t prevent malignant minds to write about magic the way they denounced propaganda. What idiocy. A magician has the utmost respect for his audience. (Inspired by the Prestige)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Trick

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's the last part of the Reincarnation AU that I have originally posted on [tumblr](http://capitaineblackbird.tumblr.com/post/132085785911/the-last-trick-magiciansau). I don't believe I will write fanfics before a long while. If you have any request, you can always send it to me of course. xxx

_**Every Light in every universe did a little magic. Bend the wills, play with perceptions, anticipate desires. Escape punishment.** _

* * *

 

Their meetings are rehearsed, a ballet, a dance too elegant for them. At least, Light thinks, if a filthy spy is hiding there in the shadows, creeps down the dead end corridor and peers inside his comfortable cage of a cell, he will be fooled.  
Yes, Lawliet went to him after all these solitary years and the image is beautiful. The words are wondrous. And the meaning of it, the ‘it’s how it was meant to play’, you can’t deny their poetry.

Yet, Lawliet and Yagami, the magical duo, are ending and still, the spy’s heart would not feel heavy in his chest because epilogues charm the audiences. People remember an ending, they keep it safe with them forever, forget and forgive the wounds it caused. It’s in the ending’s nature to hurt. Forget and forgive the beautiful beast.

Light has been conscious of that fact for a long time. Little Light loved the tales that ended well, the corny ones, and grown-ups regarded him with wide eyes because he was too intelligent a child to love a happy ending. ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is bloody and scary but for a reason, they’d explain him in that honeyed tone reserved to idiots, the American versions are made for money, money and dreams.  
Dream was a bad word, even then. They were all fools to fall for the tragedies and sweep all warm fairytales away. A writer finds it convenient to write in blood - who knew sins and fears sold so well? True artists craft miracles. The best stories are woven in light.

Hold onto the light in your mind. It’s dark out there. Light, now a murderer, plays the innocent. He has a hand on his chest, sorrow in his eyes, and the same old talent for courting.

He longs to touch, but there are bars between him and Lawliet. Real ones, made of cold steel. Lawliet’s slips a hand through. That too, feels rehearsed. All the affection, all the longing for one another is a show, an act, a lie. To the stranger’s eye, maybe. Lawliet thinks it’s a tragedy and that the masks have to be removed before they damage the skin beneath. That’s what he says.

“Why did you do it?” he asks Light. Again. It’s the first time he voices the question, in place of digging for the answer with a gaze like a scalpel. When Lawliet’s eyes locked on Light, the last day at Court, they cut the skin only to find what Lawliet always known.  
You have to be lost to be so mad.

But what has been lost once belonged. This is why Lawliet came to the little cell. He wants Light to belong again, for madness to recede.

Light never smiled as often as after he had been convicted for murder. He smiles now. Feebly.

He smiles when Lawliet asks the question. “Why did you do it?”

It’s a fragile smile of remembrance; fragile like the memory that triggered it.

“So there are things you don’t understand. Or are you just a better liar than me?”

“No liar, even me, can surpass you. Don’t worry. You’ll never be unraveled,” Lawliet says sourly.

“You were always better. Better at seducing. Better at magic.” Light pauses, and before the truth gets forever caught in his throat: “Better at taking care of yourself. You played the saint. Devoted Lawliet believed in salvation for all. Then… how is that - your faith didn’t extend to me? The minute you saw what I was, you saved yourself. You left. You left me alone with myself.”

“I needed to see you from a distance. It was all for you. To understand, so I –“

“Well, you failed. I started a journey into myself. Very soon, I was lost in a thick…swelling darkness. The more I tried to study myself, the darker it all seemed. But I never forgot my manners, Lawliet. I never killed anyone. You did.”

“I am not responsible for your crimes. I wasn’t in the country,” Lawliet lies.

“And now you are back. What if I killed so this – our conversation, could happen again? What if I just wanted you all along? It’s your fault, you’re so hard to reach. What did you expect? That I wouldn’t use the pawns at my disposal…?”

“Human lives. You wouldn’t –“

“I have respect for humanity. This does not include all humans. There are people worshipping me outside. What did I lose? Freedom? Overrated, when you are proved right. I killed crooks, I got applause and I can read all day.” Light forces a smirk. “Lucky me.”

Xx

For himself, in his little cell, Light Yagami had asked for the books of his childhood. It soothed his mood to have his fingertips skim the familiar pages.  
He read them all over, always began at the last page, the end page. He imagined all stories had the chance to be written again. He imagined life was a story in its own special way. So, he concluded, life could very well be redressed if it misbehaved.  
Before they took him away, Light was a magician. A master in the art of dreams, dreams and deception. He favoured the word dream himself, though it didn’t prevent malignant minds to write about magic the way they denounced propaganda. What idiocy. A magician has the utmost respect for his audience.  
They never understood.  
He admired them all.

Xx

In this memory, Lawliet is still his partner on stage.

He has a figure that catches the eye; he knows this, so he captures his audience’s attention in the instant. With remorse. It mares the beauty of his tours, and when he bows, he is apologizing. “The audience will never know it is a monster they graced,” says Lawliet, spitting the words, spitting on the applause after curtain call. More so than manipulation, it’s ingratitude that Light doesn’t forgive: that sort of power is a gift, a blessing, a talent that was entrusted to him. How can Lawliet, a genius, be so ungrateful?  
“You have a unique talent.”

Lawliet darts a piercing look at Light, wants to silence him. The tricks never work on him, may it remain that way.

“What I have is an aura. I am well-known, and I captured criminals before I turned to the light of the stage. It gripped me for a reason. I missed being adored. There is nothing to celebrate.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that you have been rewarded? That your ways with magic have nothing to do with your…” He takes his time to say the word, lingers so it melts in his mouth:”…aura.”

Startled, Lawliet finds he can’t give that attitude a meaning. Light, the diligent student, is not of a jealous nature. He doesn’t envy who is beyond his reach.

Being admired by Yagami doesn’t bring any satisfaction. It tastes sour.

“It’s a blessing that we met,” Lawliet says, eyes following Light’s faintest moves - he is hovering about, looking rather pale. His mind is elsewhere. “This is a world where every petty pickpocket crowns himself King of Magic. We never asked for the crown, Light, but they are all there to make us Kings tonight.”

Light’s body tenses. He halts his pacing. “There will always be something between us.”

“Not if you decide otherwise.”

“No one gets to decide in life. Why do you think I love to perform? The stage is the place where everything plays by our rules. There is a script. A code I decipher. I look outside the theatre and I see chaos. The streets…that noise…chance and hazards. There is happiness for some, because they’re lucky.”

Lawliet is reminded of Light’s age – it shows in the lilt of his voice, in the words he chooses. In Light’s aversion for reality, Lawliet decides to see youthfulness. Has insouciance ever been so morbid?

“Nothing in life happens by chance. Every incident has a cause. You are not watching closely enough.” Believing his rationale is flawless and reassuring enough, Lawliet does not move to take Light’s hand. He stands there and counts on Light’s intelligence to play the saviour in his place.

This was a mistake, to trust the brains more than the heart. The mind that wants to sink will sink. The heart is prone to second thoughts.

Xx

Miss Amane has come a long way to find them. Exhaustion doesn’t spoil her elegant posture. She speaks in a clear, ringing voice that fills the wings of the theatre. As long as it doesn’t reach the stage, it doesn’t bother Lawliet. Light, however, thinks she is a noisy intruder.

“It was an astonishing show, and these tricks…”

She invites herself in their dressing room and speaks at lengths of their respective talents; Lawliet’s clairvoyance and how Light excels in snaking away from handcuffs and straitjackets. Her words, big and beautiful, brighten her face. Marvelous, sublime, awe-inspiring.

Light relaxes, fencing his gratitude beneath his silent smile. He is careful not to look too pleased. After some time and many compliments, Lawliet rises from his armchair.

“We are not looking for a sponsor,” he says coldly.

Amane almost gasps. “Oh. Really? You aren’t willing to be better? To conquer the continent? Maybe even America?”

“No. We are not.” He lights up a cigarette, lifts his eyes, stares. It’s an absolute, cold refusal.

And then, a decision made in a heartbeat:

“I’ll consider it,” Light says with a smile. Amane makes a shrill sound of childish delight.

Xx

Lawliet’s reaction is abominable – unfair and unjust. He asserts his power with authority but there are shivers nested in the baritone of his voice: “Have you not one shred of pride, Yagami?”

Light lifts a shoulder, willingly insolent. “It’s an investment. You and I can’t count on our popularity eternally. Everything ends. You know that.”

“I make the rules. This is my show, Yagami,” says Lawliet as he advances closer to his partner. The room seems to shift and shrink. “I make the rules and you follow.”

“And…why would I follow? I am just as savvy as you are. I can expect more.”

“You have a beautiful mind, truly. And all these ideas deserve praise. But, Light, you have no instinct. You won’t make the right choices. Our place is here, we have no concurrence. I won’t bend to anyone, especially not before an American.”

“We don’t make enough money to invest in – “ A faint light shines in Light’s eye. The unmistakable sign he has a plan. It’s a beautiful sight, if a tad intimidating. Light’s ideas are never simple. “Have you ever thought about it? Machines. Your inventions, the mad experiences you couldn’t finish.”

Lawliet is careful not to encourage Light in his feverish epiphanies. “My inventions have no scientific value. They cannot be used.”

“We are magicians,” says Light in a half-laugh. “No rule apply. Only illusion.”  Like gods, they strive because they are believed in. Like gods, their existence is fragile. It hangs by a thread in the minds of humanity.

Lawliet feels all his fondness towards Light fading. The notion that he is but a liar tastes like bile. He clenches his hands. “I am not a magician. I rely on memory. Techniques. I’m a mentalist, not a crafty trickster. And my brains are not for sale.”

“We could be so much more! Our bodies of flesh and bones will not suffice, but true magic is within our reach.” There is a shudder in Light’s voice. The excitement of the desperate soul, the one who giggles at the edge of a precipice. He is a funambulist shaking on the tightrope. And he speaks with aplomb nonetheless: “Machines. Have you heard of Tesla? You are just like him -“

“No, Light!” Lawliet shouts. Light pales, takes a step back. It could go awry very fast, so Lawliet lowers his voice immediately: “Magic is a lie. Our work consists in making it beautiful. That’s all. Don’t glorify yourself.”

Xx

Losing Lawliet is like being hoisted out of the ocean. He can do all he pleases. To find a refuge in magic and orisons in the applause he earns alone. He is comforted and worshipped, the statue of a saint in a church was never loved this much.

He loathes himself, sometimes, for imagining what Lawliet would say, think or do. Without him, the story has no denouement. It can’t end. It’s an ever-lasting carnival of reveries, ephemeral pleasures. Being adored eases the wound. It doesn’t make life any less difficult.

Lawliet, a man with a presence, weights heavy in his absence. As measure of safety, Light’s mind treats him like a ghost. Mirror flower, water moon, is how you define what you can never touch, never reach, never have.

Xx

Yagami bows in a badly-lit room to a few people he failed to impress. The art of magic is agonizing. It has been surpassed by science, by the machines magic never mastered. He was right, that man who abandoned him was right. The injustice of it strikes Light right in the chest - it bleeds, he smells the blood (his imagination is ever a burden). In his mind, he sees the best shows. Dancing shadows and utopias. He can multiply himself, be more than one body and one soul. Machines, they promised, could do all that.

His hands won’t respect the plan. And technique lied.

Dreams remain dreams, so be it. He can still craft beautiful lies, if only people did not get tired of it. Lassitude strikes faster now. People get bored in the middle of an exhibit.  
So, magic is agonizing and Light is holding its hand, hoping he will catch the same disease and disappear with no shame staining his story.    
Every incident, even the cruelest twist of fate has a cause.

He can always pull one out of his hat, with his gloved, white, hands.

Xx

The posters shocked the bubbly innocence of the era: life isn’t worth the trouble in white capital letters across the horrifying image of a young man about to drown. It was designed so you would stare in hope of finding a consolation and there it was: Come to the show to see him defy death! Come to the show to see Yagami alleviate his fears. And before an audience, of course. Hundreds of eyes to testify that death is a monster Yagami never feared.

“I’d pay to see that,” Lawliet told himself. “I would cancel my own show to see that.” After years of enduring Yagami’s slander, Lawliet yielded to his own cruel instincts. Light left him with no choice. Was Lawliet supposed to believe in him, with zeal and devotion and in spite of the malice Light hid so badly? Before a show, Yagami would send his men to paint over Lawliet’s posters. He accused his old partner of cheating and divulging the secrets beneath his tricks. He did all that so he would appear to be righteous.

Yagami longed to be special, and he was. In the manner of a second-rate deity, he detested the world and breathed for its approval. He thought chaos surrounded him, detected enemies everywhere. Every man could devour him. He could die any minute. Being special, for him, meant to control chaos and master the souls. His shows were a form of mental torture. They all said so. And they all craved a ticket for next time.

Now that Yagami was lost to his mania, Lawliet recognized him as his partner. His mirror. Seeing his double, his twin, falsely drowning in a water-filled tank, submerged Lawliet in cold sharp horror. In his mind, there was a good chance the trick was meant to fail. They may all witness Yagami’s spectacular suicide next Friday.  
He wanted to sit in the front row. To punish himself, to punish Light, to die also.

Xx

Light considered ending his own life, but shunned the idea very quickly. Suicide condemns to shame. Murder, justified murder, glorifies. Someone agonizes and dies in the water-tank that night. Not him, but it could as well be. The audience falls silent as a tomb as Light parades the stage. His attire is white as snow.

Near the victim of that last trick, the magician stands, body made stiff by ecstasy. The sentiment of having accomplished a mission; it inhabits his entire being. It blinds him. He never feels his audience’s fear.

“Magic is a game and an art, the supreme marriage of skill and imagination. Beautiful inventions will be corrupted; it happened to literature, and lately architecture. Beauty, however mighty, craves protection. Secrets, smoke, mirrors – these are our tools of trade, the cold explanations behind the beauty of our shows. The Magician’s Oath protects the illusion of magic. Without it, beauty fades, and magic is but the art of distracting an audience. Without it, magic becomes manipulation. How do I lure the one who is watching me? How do I lull his attention?”

“A magician needs an aura; and that aura rests on the ever prevailing belief in magic. I would pick the right card and impress the most rational minds. Just so. This is all over. My dream collapsed, and yours too. I promise never to reveal the secret of any illusion to a non-magician. An oath! He swore an oath.”

He accuses his victim of treason, yet his eyes are fixated far away, or perhaps on someone sat in the front row.  
“A liar, a thief, a fake. This was the man I punished. Who am I to judge who deserves death you say? You all know who I am: I used to read minds before I beat death on stage. I had the best master, though I persuaded myself I was unlucky to meet him at the time. Who am I to kill? It’s simple. I am the one that reads your conscience.”

His shadow dances frantically behind him. It dominates the stage and engulfs Light with its sprawling arms.

“I wanted the best for my art and for those who need to see a grandiose feat and ordinary miracles from time to time, here on the stage. I did it to protect and serve a very human creation. Who am I to kill? I am you, all of you, as I know how you feel presently. You might fear me somewhat, but I did not detect one shred of sympathy for the man I punished. He deserved it. He injured an art. He threatened your dreams. How many of you wish they remained ignorant of the truth? This man died by his own fault. Conscious, chosen, crooked acts led him into my cage. He stole your money and my lifework. No honor, no shame. I know, in your hearts, you understand. You feel the same satisfaction I do. You all do. No one in this room can hide the inside of their head from me.”

His look, fluttering across the obscured audience until then, stills. He is persuaded to have done them a favour. It shows in his eyes. They’re pleading for him.

“Honour is saved. Shame dies with the man, and our craft will recover from that loss soon enough. I will make sure of it. My show will go on, whether or not society defines me as a criminal. I remain the same. And if you can’t find it in you to approve of my actions, think again. Think on your reasons for branding me immoral. Are these reasons yours? Can you list them? If you believe yourself righteous for judging me, I hope you aren’t just following a crowd in a collective lie. It’s possible to defend a lie with the purest sincerity. But don’t take part in such a tragedy.”

At that point, Light Yagami successfully hypnotized himself. His audience, to him, is a disorganised mass of threatening shadows. He doesn’t understand the script, the logic that guides their attitude. In his head, they would clap their hands for him. They never yelled, or screamed or prayed for his lost soul.

There is no place for a flaw in the plan.

He begs for them to understand. Some leave in fear. Most stay to humiliate him. Monster, they finally say. Light finds some strange consolation in discovering that he too, can be a powerful otherworldly creature.  
Then, his familiar fear washes over him. A monster cannot belong anywhere. A monster lies for pleasure and kills for entertainment.

“Illusionists aren’t liars. Illusionists make dream come true. We aren’t liars. I am not a liar.”

The handcuffs they use on him are heavy and impossible to remove. The policeman throws a smirk at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be an escape artist?”

“Magic has its own logic.”

It’s unfair; he learnt to breathe on the stage, he is flesh and bones and fear in the real world, where rules don’t apply and nothing is predictable.

Xx

The press ponders on a suitable name for this affair.

It is all too obvious that Yagami is convinced of his righteousness. He resists every monster archetype, in his morbid naiveté and blinding brilliance.

But to define a criminal as a prodigy?

Luckily, a journalist, keen on the culture of magic, remembered long lost Lawrence Lawliet. The man of faith that violated minds. The one who repented. A firm believer of the transgression magic represented.

They called Yagami the anti-Lawliet, so as not to admit they could not find him a proper name.

“I don’t think he would mind,” someone said. “Lawliet showed him his underworld, praised its virtues, convinced him they were on the right side of the chessboard and suddenly called the game to an end. He is the reason Yagami has become…whatever he became. He’s got no compass.”

Xx

Light regarded the audience like he would consider apparitions, ghosts, anomalies on the straight path he called his existence. They were never here. The trial might have played out without him.

He surprised everyone, this self-righteous young man, when he remained silent at that hopeless word. Guilty.  
It defined him now; he was a guilty person. Did it change him already, was he adapting to his new condition? Lawliet felt as little and miserable as any other observant.

Xx

Lawliet has no intend to free Light from his cell. He comes to him to talk, to wake their past, hoping to see glimpses of that youthful man again, his Light, the one with ideals. The one he could have become if they both had been courageous. He comes to summon a man that never existed. To feel the invisible.

“They don’t see. They can’t see. I allowed them to, but they are so used to be fooled, they couldn’t believe me. I did the right thing.”

This is Light’s usual litany, under Lawliet’s resigned, regretful eyes. The same scene unfolds again and again. And again. The story never reaches an end.

But there was a child once that loved happy endings. One day, Light’s words flutter and break. Lawliet’s chest ache in anticipation.

“I miss your tricks,” he says softly. He is improvising at last, and the performance’s never felt so perfect. “The look on their faces when you read all their secrets. Suddenly, nothing’s safe anymore. They are…caught off-guard and they begin to enjoy it. They are part of the show. It’s the key. To entangle the audience with the show. If they’re too invested, if they look too closely…they miss it all. It’s high-level manipulation. I always admired that and I still admire it now.”

At a loss for words, Lawliet moves his hand. The gesture draws a smile from Light. There is a touch of irony in it. Something sour.

“To our partnership. May we linger long in their minds, long after we both die,” Lawliet finally says. “Hell, may we find the trick to never die.”

“We could never die. One last trick – don’t you think it’s worth it?”

“You’re just being childish now.” The words do not reach Light, only the music of that phrase. It’s the saddest thing he ever heard.

“I can dream. That’s how you used to call me. A dreamer.”

* * *

 

Safe and sound in another universe, Light averts his eyes from L’s notebook. The concept of being only one of a few terrifies him. He spends some time alone in his confusion, feeling exposed and numb. The certainty that L is still alive somewhere leaves him indifferent. How should it matter to him, if he’s still lonely, if he is the only one left behind?

Then, at last, a comforting thought strikes him. I might have failed here and now, Light thinks, but inevitably, like a manuscript always rewritten, I will reach perfection.

He had felt vertigo, but now he could finally stand proud on his feet. The illusion that he was part of a perfect being in the making soothed his fear. He knew L. He knew leaving this terrifying discovery for Light to read wasn’t a faux pas on his part. It was a lullaby, acting as replacement for L’s singing voice; it comforted Light (“You’re so special in every universe”) and it deranged his life, too morbidly organised for L’s taste.

Light makes sure he thanks L. He is not visible, but perhaps he is present. He must be. Light holds onto the thought, finds some courage, and leaves.

* * *

 

**The last duet.**

Destiny is never lost. It strays and it leaves you in a shambles. _Oh, how many times did I curse this absurd notion, whilst I desperately held onto it…? I wanted destiny to serve me._ What little childish wish. Destiny has no duty to you. It’s free, it flows unnoticed. And it fails sometimes. Destiny is, after all, a human product.  
_I think of destiny as the only force capable of reuniting us. I’d be a story with you as my antagonist._ Gladly so. _Would you follow?_ Don’t spoil our ending now.  
  
It happens somewhere in-between their life and times. Two souls talking of destinies; the notion they long scorned, that they came to possess as their own.  
Ordinary people leave their lives to chance. But they, somehow, always found a purpose.


End file.
